Lately my ex-evangelical obsession has been deconstructing the phenomenon of proselytizing through the lens of three proposals: 1 proselytizing is inherently cultish
2 proselytizing is morally wrong
3 modern evangelical-style proselytizing isn't actually Biblical

One of the foundational ideas of evangelical culture is that the world in general is ignorant of The Word of Jesus Christ the Savior and that this word, being absolutely novel & vitally important, MUST be shared --

But not merely shared, in the same way I might, for example, bug all my friends by talking about my new favorite band and maybe try to get them to go to a show with me.

Pushed.
Sold.
And sold using a HARD sell --

A hard sell, like a vacuum-cleaner salesman in a 1950s farce, where they knock on your door and use all these manipulation tricks & are deceptive about what they're really selling & "won't take no for an answer"

Everything about it is dishonest, manipulative, disrespectful of consent, abusive.

Further, it's about using you -- the target of the proselytizing -- as a prop. You are dehumanized, made into an object, a symbol.

I never engaged in proselytizing when I was still an evangelical, but I definitely felt the pressure that I was SUPPOSED to. You know. Like if you make a new friend at school and the first question is "are they... saved?"

And of course, that terrible guilt. Like, you're all in doubt, right, you're not even sure that YOU are saved, but you still feel this burden -- what if you keeping silent dooms your new friend to ETERNAL HELLFIRE?

This line of sales patter is inherently abusive. It's abusive to the person expected to DO the selling -- burdening you with the eternal fate of the soul of everyone you meet, how could anyone hold up under that? But it also encourages abuse of the target. The mark.

The genius of it, from a sales perspective, a narrative perspective, is that the stakes are ULTIMATE. You simply can't GET any higher than "eternal fate" right? But that becomes a justification to use *any means* to get people to buy what you're selling.

But *what* are you actually selling? That's where I get to proposition 1, that proselytizing is inherently cultish.